Various techniques have been used in the past by bakers to form flowers and other decorations on cakes, cookies, pies, etc. For example, cake decorators typically form simulated flowers from edible materials such as gum paste, icing, or chocolate, which are then placed on a cake. Simulated flowers can be made by extruding icing through a specially shaped nozzle that produces leaf and petal-like formations of icing. Two patents that illustrate various icing extrusion techniques include U.S. Pat. No. 3,790,331 to Backer and U.S. Pat. No. 1,526,112 to Blackaller et al.
Another technique for forming flowers from icing is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,420,210 to Lindquist, whereby icing is deposited on top of a rotating turntable and shaped into a flower. U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,838 to Laughlin discloses a device used to press designs such as flowers into the top of an uncooked, rolled-out pie crust. U.S. Pat. No. 3,850,563 to Milonas et al. discloses a method for molding flowers by dipping a chilled mold into molten chocolate or icing. The molding surface of the mold has the shape of the interior of a flower. When the mold is dipped into the molten confectionery material, the material cools on the mold and forms a simulated flower.
While the devices and methods disclosed in the aforementioned patents all have their advantages, none of them discloses a way to accurately reproduce flowers from a confectionery material that are indistinguishable from real flowers. For example, none of these patents provides means for varying the thickness of the simulated leaves or petals or means for reproducing the internal features of a flower such as the stamen. Therefore, a need exists in the cake decorating arts for an apparatus and method that can be used to form simulated flowers from a confectionery material that are nearly identical to actual flowers.